Is this it?

[Fuzzness 2]

I don't think people realize that pro-choice doesn't mean you are pro-abortion. I don't like abortion myself, and I know that if I had the choice (I seem to be lacking the body parts to be pregnant) I would rather have the baby. However I respect a woman's right to chose, and I acknowledge that there are certain conditions that can exist where abortion would be favourable (if the baby had no chance of surviving or if the mother was at risk). For me it's not a religious issue. I know what happens when you mix religion and politics. You get war.

[Chicky 0]

Okay then, we need to change the legal age for voting, buying cigarettes and drinking then. I mean if life begins at conception why are people having to wait until exactly 18 years old to vote and buy cigarettes, or exactly age 21 to buy alcohol. I mean technically people should be able to buy cigarettes and vote at 17 years 3 months, and 20 years 3 months. You have to subtract the 9 months they are in the womb. Obviously the LAW doesn't consider a baby a person until its born due to that above. Imagine going to buy cigarettes or alcohol and the having to calculate your ages to be at least 17 years or 20 years and 3 months old.

Edited February 26, 2006 by Chicky

[Aymerlu 3]

These threads make me SICK. They way that people comment about lives of babies like a burden, a bother. It is disgusting and SAD. The rape/incest argument is so rediculous. That isn't the issue. Millions of babies are killed-not because women have been raped, but because of an unplanned pregancy. I wish people would claim responsibility for their actions. Rape and incest victims are few and far between in this issue-- and with reguard to that, two wrongs don't make a right. That child is being punished for someone elses crime--talk about an innocent victim of crime. Now with abortion of a child conceived of rape now makes two vicitms. That isn't a solution.

I was going to stay out of this, but this statement made ME sick. Have you ever been raped? Do you know what that feels like? Then throw a pregnancy as a result on top of that feeling? Rape and incest victims are not as few and far between as you'd like to think. I know most people won't talk about it, but I can guarantee there is at least one person in this forum that has been raped. Whether it be date rape or rape by a stranger... it's more common than you think.

I'm a mother of 2 and am pregnant with my third child... I've had 2 miscarriages, one of them resulting in the loss of a tube and me almost bleeding to death. However, I support a woman's right to chose whether or not she has an abortion.

There are so many situations that you obviously have not even dreamed out that would influence a decision to have an abortion. If it's not you or your decision, you have no right to judge those who make the decision.

OK....now I need to say my 2 cents, not that it means a hill of beans. I have a darling 5 year old little girl that was conceived by a rape/beating. I was in the hospital for a month...BAD ORDEAL. Through all the emotional problems I went through I never once thought of abortion. I had 6 miscarriages/still births prior to this pregnancy and having seen a fetus during a miscarriage, I couldn't fathom of what the fetus would look like after an abortion. I love my daughter with all my heart and although the rape was terrible and I would not wish it upon anyone, I would not change things now because I have this beautiful little girl. That's just me though. I think abortions being used as a form of birth control is just wrong, but say you are be safe and an accident happens, that's just another story. I was not put on this earth to judge anyone, I can only be responsible for my own actions. Being in the medical field, I hate to see what will happen with these unwanted pregnancies if abortions are no more.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I was not put on this earth to judge anyone, I can only be responsible for my own actions. Being in the medical field, I hate to see what will happen with these unwanted pregnancies if abortions are no more.

That's the point, isn't it? Criminalizing abortions will result in more, not fewer deaths. It's not pro-life at all. What it really is is legislating morals and religous belief systems. Legislating morals and religous belief systems, however, is just not what we should or need to be doing here. The Taliban did that in Afghanistan. And now the American Taliban is busy trying to accomplish that here as well.

Makes one wonder what the hell for did we drive them out of business over there? Could it be it was because the religous belief system of the Afghan Taliban was different than than of the American Taliban?

[dalegg 143]

Criminalizing abortions will result in more, not fewer deaths.

Now that's a pretty bold statement considering that all statiscal data points otherwise. From what I've read there were less than 250 deaths resulting from an estimated 100,000 illegal abortions per year prior to 1973.

Extreme Pro-Choice advocates have been quoted as saying numbers as high as 20,000 deaths resulting from 1,000,000 illegal abortions, but seeing how the legal abortion numbers were:

1973 - 774,600

1974 - 898,600

1975 - 1,034,200

That's kind of hard to believe.

Even if there were 20,000 maternal deaths per year, the number of abortions rose by 124,000 in just the first year of legalization. In order for your statement to be true, you have to believe that less than 5% of women would be persuaded not to have an abortion if it was illegal, and the abortion death rates would be worse than in the 50s. I don't buy it.

Really, I tried to find some statistics that would bolster your statement but I could not. If you have links, please share them.

[aamna 0]

I also read that that the back-alley thing is a myth. This is what I read:Research from (and permission to use by) David Reardon:

Quote:

For decades prior to its legalization, 90 percent of abortions were done by physicians in their offices, not in back alleys.

Fifteen years before abortion was legal in America, around 85 percent of illegal abortions were done by "reputable physicians in good standing in their local medical associations." In 1960, Planned Parenthood stated that "90% of all illegal abortions are presently done by physicians." The vast majority of abortions were not done in back alleys but in the back offices of licensed physicians.

The majority of physicians performing abortions after legalization were the same ones doing it before legalization. Neither their training nor their equipment improved when abortion was decriminalized. Either they were not butchers before legalization, or they continued to be butchers after legalization. It cannot be argued both ways.

It is not true that tens of thousands of women were dying from illegal abortions before abortion was legalized.

Former abortion-rights activist Bernard Nathanson admits that he and his cofounders of NARAL fabricated the figure that a million women were getting illegal abortions in America each year. The average, he says, was actually ninety-eight thousand per year. Nonetheless, the abortion advocates fed their concocted figured to the media, who eagerly disseminated the false information. Nathanson says he and his associates also invented the "nice, round shocking figure" for the number of deaths from illegal abortions:

Quote:

It was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But it the "morality" of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics? The overriding concern was to get the laws [against abortion] eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done permissible.

Research confirms that the actual number of abortion deaths in the twenty-five years prior to 1973 averaged 250 a year, with a high of 388 in 1948. In 1966, before the first state legalized abortion, 120 mothers died from abortions. By 1972 abortion was still illegal in 80 percent of the country, but the use of antibiotics had greatly reduced the risk. Hence, the number dropped to 39 maternal deaths from abortion that year. Dr. Christopher Tietze, a prominent statistician associated with Planned Parenthood, maintained that these are accurate figures, with a margin of error no greater than 10 percent.

However, suppose that only one out of ten deaths from illegal abortion was properly identified. This would mean that the number of women dying the year before abortion was legalized would be less than four hundred, still only a fraction of the five to ten thousand claimed by prochoice advocates.

Women still die from legal abortions in America.

Abortion is normally not life-threatening to the mother. However, the fatality rate is much higher than many prochoice advocates admit. For instance, a widely disseminated prochoice video produced in the late 1980s states, "By 1979 the Federal Government could not identify a single woman anywhere in this country who died of abortion."

This is an amazing statement, since many sources document a number of deaths from legal abortion. According to the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, "the New York City Department of Health reported seven legal abortion-related deaths that occurred between 1980 and 1985. The cause of death in all cases was attributed directly to general anesthesia." (These were seven deaths in a single city.) There were four abortion-caused deaths in a single Florida clinic between 1979 and 1983. In 1986, four doctors and researchers presented a study of no less than 193 deaths by legal abortion between 1972 and 1985. One researcher has uncovered the tragic cases of some 300 women who have died as a result of legal abortion.

Since public health officials stopped looking for abortion-caused deaths after abortion was legal, the opportunity to overlook or cover up abortion-caused deaths is now much greater. A former abortion clinic owner says, "A woman died because of an abortion at our clinic, but the public never heard about it, and it wasn't reported to the authorities as abortion related." When the Chicago Sun-Times investigated Chicago area abortion clinics in 1978 it uncovered the cases of twelve women who died of legal abortion but whose deaths had not been reported as abortion-related. Twelve unreported deaths from abortion in one small part of the country is a revealing number when the official statistics indicated twenty-one deaths from abortion in the entire country the previous year!

Statistics on death by abortion are dependent on the voluntary reporting of abortion clinics, who have much to lose and nothing to gain by doing so. What makes abortion-related deaths hard to trace is that the majority of the deaths do not occur during the surgery but afterward. Hence, any number of secondary reasons are routinely identified as the cause of death:

Quote:

Consider the mother who hemorrhaged, was transfused, got hepatitis, and died months later. Official cause of death? Hepatitis. Actual cause? Abortion. A perforated uterus leads to pelvic abscess, sepsis (blood poisning), and death. The official report of the cause of death may list pelvice abscess and septicemia. Abortion will not be listed. Abortion causes tubal pathology. She has an ectopic pregnancy years later and dies. The cause listed will be ectopic pregnancy. The actual cause? Abortion.

Legalized abortion has resulted in fifteen times more women having abortions. This means that if it is fifteen times safer than illegal abortion, the number of women dying remains the same. Writing in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Dennis Cavanaugh stated that since abortion has been legalized, "there has been no major impact on the number of women dying from abortions in the U.S... After all, it really makes no difference whether a woman dies from legal or illegal abortion, she is dead nonetheless. I find no comfort in the fact that legal abortion is now the leading cause of abortion-related maternal deaths in the U.S."

If abortion became illegal, abortions would be done with medical equipment, not clothes hangers.

One woman told me, "People must think women are stupid. If abortion were illegal and I wanted one, I sure wouldn't use a clothes hanger." Since 90 percent of pre-1973 illegal abortions were done by doctors, it's safe to assume many physicians would continue to give abortions. "Self-help" abortion kits are being widely promoted and distributed by pro abortion groups, who have vowed they will step up their efforts if abortion is made illegal again. Sadly, many women would continue to have abortions. But the "many" might be a quarter of a million rather than a half million. The result would be over a million mothers and babies annually saved from abortion.

Clothes hangers make effective propaganda pieces at prochoice rallies, but they do not accurately reflect what would happen if abortion were made illegal again. Clothes hangers would be used for baby clothes, not abortions.

*Alfred Kinsey, cited by John Wilke, Abortion Questions and Answers

*Mary Calderone, "Illegal Abortion as a Public Health Problem," American Health 50

*Bernard Nathanson, Aborting America

*Ibid, 42

*U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics

*Ibid

*Germain Grisez, Abortion: The Myths, the Realities, and the Arguments

*"Abortion: For Survival"

*Hani K. Atrash, MD; Theodore Cheek, MD; and Carol Hogue, PhD, "Legal Abortion Mortality and General Anesthesia" American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

*Michael Kaffrissen, et al., "Cluster of Abortion Deaths at a Single Facility," Obstetrics and Gynecology

*"Jury Orders Abortionist to Pay $25 Million Judgement," Life Advocate

*Dawn Stover, "Cause of Death: Legal Abortion," Life Advocate

*Carol Everett, personal conversation with the author and Frank Peretti on May 24, 1991

*U.S. Center of Vital Statistics

*James A. Miller, "A Tale of Two Abortions," Human Life International Reports

*Willke, Abortion Questions

*Frank E. Peretti, Prophet

*Dennis Cavanaugh, "Effect of Liberalized Abortion on Maternal Mortality Rates," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

*Gina Kolata, "Self-help Abortion Movement Gains Momentum," The New York Times

*David C. Reardon, Aborted Women: Silent No More

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Criminalizing abortions will result in more, not fewer deaths.

Now that's a pretty bold statement considering that all statiscal data points otherwise. From what I've read there were less than 250 deaths resulting from an estimated 100,000 illegal abortions per year prior to 1973.

Extreme Pro-Choice advocates have been quoted as saying numbers as high as 20,000 deaths resulting from 1,000,000 illegal abortions, but seeing how the legal abortion numbers were:

1973 - 774,600

1974 - 898,600

1975 - 1,034,200

That's kind of hard to believe.

Even if there were 20,000 maternal deaths per year, the number of abortions rose by 124,000 in just the first year of legalization. In order for your statement to be true, you have to believe that less than 5% of women would be persuaded not to have an abortion if it was illegal, and the abortion death rates would be worse than in the 50s. I don't buy it.

Really, I tried to find some statistics that would bolster your statement but I could not. If you have links, please share them.

You are, of course, taking the pro-choice stand that the fetus begins a life of it's own right at conception. I tend to disagree with that presumption as there's really no scientific eveidence that there's any merit to it (AS posted a link earlier). And because I don't agree with that presumption, I can make the statment I made.

I'll go with your lowest figure: 250 deaths resulting from the dangers that illegal abortions have attached to them are, quite obviously, 250 deaths that would not have occured if the procedure would have been performed in a medically sound environment.

Edited February 27, 2006 by ET-US2004

[dalegg 143]

You are, of course, taking the pro-choice stand that the fetus begins a life of it's own right at conception. I tend to disagree with that presumption as there's really no scientific eveidence that there's any merit to it (AS posted a link earlier). And because I don't agree with that presumption, I can make the statment I made.

Okay, I'll accept your answer. I think that's a pretty common pro-choice stand. (By the way I was taking the pro-LIFE stand, not the pro-choice stand, but I know what you meant). Since you don't think the fetus has a life of it's own, may I ask if you think it's a life at all? And if so, what type of life is it?

[Dixie_Peach 1]

Parsing words, socialist,socialized! If you take all the ppl out there with no health care and put the burden on all the ppl that are employed (paying the bill) I beleive i would be paying more! I got an idea why doesnt everyone that wants socialized (corrected) health care get together and chip in a hundred a month and then give it out to the ones who need it! start your own little health care club, we would see what would happen when a few use it the most and the ones who dont would be a little pissed off! or maybe instead of whining about it, I want this, I want that! get a job that has a decent plan!

Socialist is not the same as socialised.

So who pays for the housewifes? Being a housewife is not a job which comes with great benefits. A single mom can't get to work because there's no government supported childcare and what she earns will not cover it on top of the regular bills, so she can't get those benefits or paycheque to support the child that the state won't let her abort.

Do you not think something is whacked there?

So who pays for housewives? Their husbands.

The problems would all be solved if people started living decent lives.

Wow! Do you also walk on water?

So who pays for housewives? Their husbands.

The problems would all be solved if people started living decent lives.

Decent lives? Excuse me? I have had to use the public assistance programs in the past. At the same time I was working, going to school, and raising my daughter by myself. Just because someone needs that for medical care does not mean they do not live "decent" lives. It isn't like they hand you a really good job with great benefits when you graduate high school. Right now, those jobs are not even easy to get after obtaining a college degree.

Now I have a good paying job with excellent benefits, but I had to work really hard to get to this point AND I needed a little help along the way. Needing assistance does not equate to not living a decent life.

DITTO!!!

I don't think people realize that pro-choice doesn't mean you are pro-abortion. I don't like abortion myself, and I know that if I had the choice (I seem to be lacking the body parts to be pregnant) I would rather have the baby. However I respect a woman's right to chose, and I acknowledge that there are certain conditions that can exist where abortion would be favourable (if the baby had no chance of surviving or if the mother was at risk). For me it's not a religious issue. I know what happens when you mix religion and politics. You get war.

good job fuzzie! karen has a treasure in you!

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

You are, of course, taking the pro-choice [should read: pro-life] stand that the fetus begins a life of it's own right at conception. I tend to disagree with that presumption as there's really no scientific eveidence that there's any merit to it (AS posted a link earlier). And because I don't agree with that presumption, I can make the statment I made.

Okay, I'll accept your answer. I think that's a pretty common pro-choice stand. (By the way I was taking the pro-LIFE stand, not the pro-choice stand, but I know what you meant). Since you don't think the fetus has a life of it's own, may I ask if you think it's a life at all? And if so, what type of life is it?

To make my personal position clear yet again: I am very much against abortion. It is not something I would my wife encourage to do. And I do think a fetus is a life. What type of life? What kind of a question is that? You can ask the same of, say, the Terry Shiavos out there. Turn the feeding tube off and it's all over.

It's rightfully a decision for the family to make not a decision for the legislator.

[dalegg 143]

You are, of course, taking the pro-choice [should read: pro-life] stand that the fetus begins a life of it's own right at conception. I tend to disagree with that presumption as there's really no scientific eveidence that there's any merit to it (AS posted a link earlier). And because I don't agree with that presumption, I can make the statment I made.

Okay, I'll accept your answer. I think that's a pretty common pro-choice stand. (By the way I was taking the pro-LIFE stand, not the pro-choice stand, but I know what you meant). Since you don't think the fetus has a life of it's own, may I ask if you think it's a life at all? And if so, what type of life is it?

To make my personal position clear yet again: I am very much against abortion. It is not something I would my wife encourage to do. And I do think a fetus is a life. What type of life? What kind of a question is that? You can ask the same of, say, the Terry Shiavos out there. Turn the feeding tube off and it's all over.

It's rightfully a decision for the family to make not a decision for the legislator.

The question is pointed at the statement "Criminalizing abortions will result in more, not fewer deaths" and your dismissal of fetal deaths that made up the statistics I gave you so your statement would remain true.

I'm just thinking, if it doesn't die, then maybe it isn't alive, but then again, if it is alive (as I think something that is a life is), and it is very much a baby, then it does die, but since it doesn't count as a human death, then it can't be human, so what type of life is it?

I couldn't really ask the same question of the Terry Shiavos out there because despite the debates on viability or awareness, nobody questions that whether or not they were actually human.

[Carol&Marc 0]

You are, of course, taking the pro-choice stand that the fetus begins a life of it's own right at conception. I tend to disagree with that presumption as there's really no scientific eveidence that there's any merit to it (AS posted a link earlier). And because I don't agree with that presumption, I can make the statment I made.

Okay, I'll accept your answer. I think that's a pretty common pro-choice stand. (By the way I was taking the pro-LIFE stand, not the pro-choice stand, but I know what you meant). Since you don't think the fetus has a life of it's own, may I ask if you think it's a life at all? And if so, what type of life is it?

If they valued it as a life they wouldnt get it sucked out of them like some kind of tumor that doesnt belong there,screw the fact they contributed to it being there in the first place,again if it was because of rape or incest then the woman should definately have the choice to do what she thinks is best. But for a lady to go out on friday night find a cute guy to hook up with and ends up pregnant,face the consequensus if in the back of her mind she knew she couldnt get a abortion, might act as a deterrent, if not! HI MOMMY! you made me, you take care of me, dont kill me! Im very small and I need you and i will love you forever! and who knows you might love me too if you gave the time to get to know me!

[kc456 0]

You guys are still at it?

[Fischkoepfin 1]

There are also verses in the New Testament that support Capitol Punishment. What I'm saying is that this is how the religious right justifies supporting Capitol Punishment and condemning abortion at the same time. Abortion is clearly a sin. I don't think anyone debates that, and the bible-both old and new has versus that support capitol punishment. Sure it has verses that seem to promote forgiveness also, but if it was really black and white one way or the other I think Christians would be more united on the issue. What you can do for me is explain why there are groups on the left that support abortion rights at any trimester without any reason other than it is the mother's choice, but at the same time condemn Capitol Punishment in every single case-even those where there is no debating the guilt of the criminal.

Sorry, I can't explain that you because I am not representing any groups on the left. I am for a woman's right to choose when it comes to abortion, but I do not agree with abortion past the first trimester. After week 12, when the embryo becomes a fetus, a line is reached for me, even though I still agree with abortion past that point if they are done for medical reasons. I wouldn't say life begins at week twelve, but I would say that it is at the beginning of the second trimester that the fetus is recognizably human and not just a mass of cells. And because I do not agree with killing humans under any circumstance, I also oppose capital punishment. It is a pointless exercise of power, and it is not the decision of the state to decide if someone has the right to live or to die.

I separate Catholics because there are fundamental differences between mainstreem Christianity and Catholicism- Like the debate on the Holy Trinity. You are also more likely to find higher ranking Catholics opposing the death penalty than other Christians. Don't ask me why that is.

I find that division awkward and quite Americanocentric. In many regions of the world, Catholicism is mainstream Christianity, and there are many Protestant churches (which would be the less charged term in this context) that have even bigger differences between each other than some Protestant churches and Catholics. As to more higher-ranking Catholics supporting the death penalty: That statement holds only true in the US. In most other countries in the world, the majority of Christians (Protestants and Catholics alike) oppose the death penalty because it runs contrary to their beliefs of the sanctity of life. Why this view has not caught on in the US has reasons that lie beyond religion. As an example, only last year did the American Catholic Bishops endorse the World churches oppostion to the death penalty, and they were the last to do so, despite long-term pressures from the Vatican. The death penalty is an American phenomenon at this point in time...

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I couldn't really ask the same question of the Terry Shiavos out there because despite the debates on viability or awareness, nobody questions that whether or not they were actually human.

Right. They are human. Nobody questions that. Absent a living will, the family rather than the legislator is the authority on the question of whether or not to sustain the non-viable and/or the non-aware life. So, why is it okay in that scenario for the decision to be made within the family (the courts have maintained that against the DeLay's and Bush's time and again in the Shiavo case) and not in the other?

...again if it was because of rape or incest then the woman should definately have the choice to do what she thinks is best.

Not in South Dakota she doesn't. Not anymore.

South Dakota lawmakers crafted a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade on Friday, passing a bill that bans all abortions — including in cases of rape or incest ...

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